Why Every Grownup Company Needs to Act Like a Startup Too

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I founded my company in 2005, but those early years still feel like yesterday.

Taking the stairs from my third-floor apartment to our cramped second-floor office, where the atmosphere was electric. Coding until 4 am — when the 15 of us weren’t on late-night sales calls with countries we’d never visited or holding training camps for resellers of our POS technology. Working with Apple to launch an early version of mobile checkout. Damn, we got a lot done.

I feel the same going to work today — two decades and thousands of employees later. But recapturing that startup energy at the business, where I recently returned as CEO , was no accident.

Startups have amazing virtues. They’re a hive of innovation and energy, with an outsize economic impact. Worldwide, they create almost $3 trillion in value , on par with a G7 economy. Fast-growing startups generate about 10% of new jobs in any given year, even though they account for less than 1% of companies.

But that edge is all too often lost as a business grows. Customers get overlooked. Hierarchies are entrenched. Staffing becomes bloated. The dynamic culture wanes. Perhaps worst of all, the company loses its sense of purpose.

It doesn’t have to be like that. The best businesses find ways to come full circle — by reinjecting the energy that made their early days so thrilling. For other companies seeking to reclaim that startup spirit — at scale — here are five ways to do it.

1. Focus relentlessly on product

A company is nothing without its products and its customers. But the bigger it gets, the further team members tend to drift from both.

That’s why the surest way to energize any company is to start with product. This may sound obvious, but it’s amazing how many mature companies lose that laser focus on giving customers what they truly want and need — a product that’s intuitive and easy to use, that adds value, that’s better than anything else out there. So how do you regain a product focus? Prioritize innovation — insist on continuously improving your product with new tools and new features, the ones you know that your customers are clamoring for. For us, that’s meant redoubling investments in our retail and hospitality POS technology, with an emphasis on leveraging AI.?

Keeping the spark of innovation alive is a competitive advantage. In a study of public companies , those that led on profitable growth and innovated more, saw twice as much excess revenue from their core business — even compared to other growth leaders.

Compared to their less conscientious peers, customer-obsessed companies grow revenue almost 30% faster on average.

2. Get closer to the customer

Hand-in-hand with product innovation is connecting with customers, which brings us closer to the flame that ignites the business.

In our startup days, we knew every customer because we onboarded them personally. That might not be possible now, but to keep innovating, we need to understand our customers’ needs.?

There, we’ve come full circle too. To reinvigorate customer connections, start at the top. Company leadership — right up to the CEO — must take the time to engage with users. A few weeks back into the job, I connected with a group of restaurant owners in Melbourne. They were long-term, loyal users of our tools, but had questions and concerns. That same mandate extends to directors, managers and frontline employees. As companies grow, it’s all too easy to get insulated from the people you serve. Breaking down that silo takes work, but it’s worth it. ?

A thirst for feedback gets business results. Compared to their less conscientious peers, customer-obsessed companies grow revenue almost 30% faster on average. Their profitability growth is one third higher, and they’re more than 40% better at keeping customers.

3. Restore a strong purpose

Beyond collecting a paycheck, employees need to know why they go to work. That sense of purpose was strong in our early days. We were helping small businesses — some of them right in our neighborhood. Everyone felt like they were making a difference.

How do you impart that sense of purpose at scale? You need to find ways to extend that same feeling of ownership to employees. That means closing the gap between effort and impact. There’s nothing more powerful than an engineer or developer seeing their work go live and actually move the needle for customers. I saw this up close recently when we launched a new solution that lets restaurant staff take orders and process payments from their phone.

Customer events and workshops can also help close the purpose gap. At a recent gathering in our hometown, we brought restaurant owners together to network and share ideas.

Having a strong purpose delivers many benefits. Employees inspired by a sense of purpose are 50% more productive than those who are simply engaged, while consumers are four times more likely to trust, buy from and recommend purpose-driven companies.

4. Show employees, don’t just tell them

The more a company grows, the less employees see of the inner workings that make it tick. Lifting the hood — on real problems, on growth opportunities, on where the company is going and what stands in the way — is an opportunity for leaders looking to recapture startup spirit.

Case in point: Company-wide kickoffs and townhalls often have a pep rally feel to them, with lots of inspirational slogans but little substance. But we took a radically different approach recently and dove into the innovation actually happening on our platform. I learned that people loved that take. Why? Because I’d explained how we’re going to deliver for customers, not just presented it as a done deal.?

That was a lesson for me. In our startup days, I didn’t make grand speeches to the team. I talked about product features and customer feedback — the essence of the business. In that spirit, our product leader and our go-to-market leader just led a session devoted to the nitty-gritty of several new releases. I can’t be the only one who came out pumped.?

Showing rather than telling makes for happier employees. Eight of 10 workers want their company to be transparent, which in turn boosts engagement .

5. Actually get together in person

Confession: I’ve never enjoyed being in the office more than right now. Remote and hybrid work have their own virtues. But we’re rediscovering the energy and creativity of working together in person a few days a week.?

For companies that want to reinject startup spirit, few things are more effective than having people interact. In my experience, teams innovate faster when they can bounce ideas off each other. Being together also helps build stronger relationships — and allows for those “watercooler” conversations that often yield the best insights.

On that note, there’s evidence that face-to-face interactions boost innovation. In-person teams are more likely to make groundbreaking advances, a large-scale study shows.

This IRL mandate goes doubly for leaders. Showing up at the office is a chance to be accessible — by walking around and getting to know people and their work. My personal goal is to spend more time with the product development folks.???

All of this said, it’s critical to note that a grown-up company is not a startup. Reinjecting startup energy is important, but this needs to be tempered by other priorities. Startups, for instance, often prioritize growth at all costs, burning through VC dollars as fast as they can raise them. Mature companies need to balance growth and profitability. Likewise, a “throw-spaghetti-at-the-wall” approach might fly at a startup — where fast pivots are the name of the game in the quest for product-market fit — but a mature company requires a long-term vision, where everyone sings from the same song sheet. Planning not just quarters but years ahead is the only way to stay ahead of competitors.?

It’s no surprise that in a 15-year study of over 600 US public companies, those with a long view on investment, growth, earnings quality and earnings management grew their average revenue almost 50% more.

Ultimately, startup spirit can help an established company discover new reserves of energy and innovation while also staying focused on the horizon.

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